Gratitude

How do you express your gratitude?

Hello Dazzle! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Happy Thanksgiving! Today seemed like the perfect day to talk about gratitude. Gratitude is when you feel thankful for the good things in your life even when you are experiencing hardships or difficulties. It is all too easy to become focused on the negative aspects of our lives and forget that there are still good things happening as well. These good things are often things people take for granted, like having a place to live, food, clean water, friends, and family. Gratitude is taking a moment to reflect on how lucky you are when something good happens, whether it’s small or big; whether it is occasional or everyday.

You can use lots of words to describe feelings of gratitude: thankful, fortunate, humbled, appreciative, and blessed. However we describe these feelings, it is important to take the time to express those feelings as well. For me, the expression of my gratitude looks different depending on the context.

There are things that I have because of life circumstances that are largely luck. Those are things like having access to clean water, having a home, food and the like. While I do things to maintain these things in my life, they are an option because I was lucky enough to have been born in a part of the world where these things are an option. With things like these, I express my gratitude through contemplation and regard. I try to spend time thinking about things that I could easily take for granted that other people do not have the benefit of. Doing this reminds me that while things can get difficult in my life, there are still things that are good and beneficial as well.

When someone has taken as action that has led to a benefit in my life I do my best to show my gratitude by making sure to tell them that I appreciate the things that they do for me. I feel that telling people they are appreciated and saying thank you really does go a long way to making people feel like the things that they do matter. I also do my best to do something for them in return. What that is will depend on the person. Sometimes it is giving them a home made treat like cookies. Other times it is making sure to schedule a day of video games with them. It depends on what I have to give that the person would benefit from. Most often, I focus on giving people my time because I don’t feel that people get enough of that in today’s culture.

I even try to express gratitude towards myself. I often struggle to feel that the things that I spend my time on are meaningful. When I see that I have done something that is good for myself, I try to express gratitude towards myself. That might mean simply taking a moment to acknowledge that resting was important for my health and it was good that I did that for myself. It can also mean taking the time to thank myself for the money that I’ve earned and can now spend to buy the things that my family needs. When I get my pay check, I tell myself that I did a good job working and earning money for myself and my family.

Sometimes, gratitude can be just having a moment of mindfulness in my day. Taking the time to really enjoy the coffee or tea that I am drinking rather then rushing through it is a way to express gratitude for having that small pleasure in my life. This is also true for putting on my fuzzy pajamas or the fluffy zebra hoodie. Taking a moment to really feel them against my skin and allow myself to feel grateful for having these things in my life.

There are also times that I like to express my gratitude by writing a blog post or a list of things that I am grateful for as a way of declaring it out to the universe. Today, this is my list of gratitude:

• My room mates who have always given me the space to be myself.
• The education that has allowed me to better understand myself and better care for myself.
• The medications that keep my chronic illness symptoms controlled enough that I can function.
• My ability to walk.

Well, that’s about it for my rambling today. Thanks for coming and spending some time with me. If you like my rambling then click on that like button. It really does help! Until we talk again, you take care of yourselves!